Call Of Duty: Black Ops II Review

AM's Black Ops II Verdict

This is not just a fantastic Call of Duty game, but one of the best shooters of the last decade.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops IIActivisionPlaystation 3, Xbox 360

Isn't it just the same old formula?

This appears to be the defining question informing the direction of developer Treyarch’s latest, Call of Duty: Black Ops II. While most of the design conforms to the familiar formula seen in early CoD games, the unparalleled wealth of gameplay options and brilliant twists on the formula have shaped Black Ops II into the most ambitious and exciting Call of Duty ever made. This is far more than “just another Call of Duty.” This is an evolution.

How has the campaign been improved?A great narrative already makes Black Ops II stand out from its predecessors, but where it really sets itself apart is the addition of player choice and consequence. Moments and devices that would otherwise seem irrelevant - like whether you find all of the intel in a level or choose to shoot someone - can come back to haunt you, hurt you or help you. Failing objectives might result in more challenging missions rather than a restart screen.

It’s a brilliant riff on the traditional Call of Duty campaign design and creates a narrative worth replaying just to see the different moments and endings. Most importantly, choice makes you a part of what you play; it’s not just a story, it’s your story. Every level also has challenges associated with it, and you can scope out the leaderboards to see how you stand up to your buddies. These are small details, but they layer on another reason to replay the stages. If for some bizarre reason the narrative doesn’t grab you, then you still have lots of additional goals to try and achieve that are decidedly more “gamey.”

What about the gameplay?Shooting is as fun and precise as ever, and alongside the abundance of gigantic explosions, vehicle missions and intense firefights, it feels like the closest thing most of us will ever get to starring in an action film. In that sense, Black Ops II is the classic Call of Duty formula at its best, with an important, defining difference: The emphasis on drone warfare, the exotic-but-grounded weaponry and the attention to detail in the believably high-tech architecture makes Blacks Op II feel strikingly plausible even when it strays into non-historical settings.

How about multiplayer, any big changes there?While not as big of a departure as Treyarch’s single-player, multiplayer still provides a number of new options and modes that make it more engrossing than what’s come before. Call of Duty has shaped the way other shooters present class and loadout designs for years, and Treyarch redefines the standard with the Pick 10 system, which allows the creation of the most specifically tuned classes in any shooter ever. Each attachment, weapon, grenade or perk counts as one of your ten points, and you can swap them out at will to create a huge number of combinations.

You want to have a soldier with a pistol, four perks and two throwing axes? Do it. Or maybe you want to snap three attachments to a LMG, ditching your grenades to give yourself additional perks - you can do that too.

It sounds good, but the multiplayer culture of the game has always put me off.You’ll be pleased to hear that Treyarch has taken a couple of steps this year to make the multiplayer experience more pleasant across the board. First up, the Kill Streak system has been replaced by Score Streaks, making every match less about how many kills you get and more about doing whatever nets you the highest score. This accomplishes a majorly important feat: it makes every game less about your Kill/Death ratio, and encourages everyone to help with objectives. Alongside this is Combat Training, which allows beginners to group together in battles against bots between levels 1-10.

After 10 you can still fight bots, but you’ll only ever earn half the experience, ensuring no one uses this to level easily, while keeping you from feeling forced to join public games to proceed. Sillier game modes like Sticks and Stones (crossbows, throwing axes and ballistic knives only) and One in the Chamber (your gun has only one bullet until you score a kill) round out the experience, meaning there’s simply more ways than ever to just have fun in Black Ops II.

I hear Zombies mode is back, how does it hold up?It’s the deepest the franchise has seen yet offers a fun alternative to the otherwise serious CoD gameplay. The ridiculousness of the Zombies world is pervasive, and the constant banter between characters keeps things light. Moreover it’s a lot of fun to do something cooperative in Call of Duty. Fighting off increasingly difficult waves of the undead inspires a different sort of tension than anything else the series has to offer, and with Zombies, it’s just about having some laughs rather than trying to be the best.

The mode is intentionally designed vague, leaving you to your own devices to find random objects to combine into machines or defensive items in the environment; once you build them, you’re given no explanation about how to use them. It’s a bit aggravating, sure, but when you stumble upon a solution it’s also really rewarding, especially when that knowledge is applied to your evolving Zombies routine.

Is it the best Call of Duty yet?Ultimately, the team at Treyarch could have played it safe and Black Ops II would have sold well, but instead they challenged assumptions and pushed the series forward in a new direction. When you consider the versatile campaign and introduction of Pick 10 in conjunction with the host of subtle and overt improvements to the array of other systems, the additions to make it more appealing to Esports, and the more fleshed out Zombies mode, this is not just a fantastic Call of Duty game, but one of the best shooters of the last decade.